


Should Have Known

by zahnie



Category: Leverage
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Multi, Pre-Relationship, spur-of-the-moment vacations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 07:02:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13565331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zahnie/pseuds/zahnie
Summary: Eliot, Hardison, and Parker decide separately to leave the country for a while, with unexpected results.





	Should Have Known

**Author's Note:**

> _Should've known I'd be the first to leave/ Think about the place where you first met me_
> 
>  
> 
> Set between seasons 4 and 5 basically, so Hardison/Parker is a tentative yes and the OT3 is a future maybe.
> 
> Inspired by the song Getaway Car by Taylor Swift and I looked and looked for an actual track of her singing on YouTube for you guys but no joy. The song has far faaar more angst than this piece of fluff... my fics tend to be angstier in my head than when actually written.

The inevitability of it all dawns on Eliot gradually. At first, everything is clear. Nate is the leader and the rest of them fall in line with their assignments. Even at the very beginning, it isn't simple, but the lines are drawn: 1-4. Sophie and Nate change it. Increasingly, the team moves into 2-3. And then, as Hardison and Parker become more like a couple, it's 2-2-1. Eliot is fine with that, by the way. He likes seeing Parker and Hardison together. He likes it more than an outside person probably should. They suit each other. He's really glad the team brought them together.

He's in love with them but what does that matter? They don't know and that's for the best, really. It's better for Eliot to be on the outside. If he ruined their friendship by pushing in, he'd never forgive himself.

That in mind, he should have noticed when their hangouts started becoming more and more date-like.

It's a slow build up. He just let more and more things slide, moving the line he didn't want to cross. He hasn't been pushing back enough, not really. Because he doesn't want to.

Life is consequences. Parker tensing up as she leans against him (even though she doesn't move away) and that confused look on Hardison's face (even though he pretends nothing is wrong) are consequences of Eliot letting things go too far.

The end of the movie is awkward and Eliot goes home with a new resolution: to sort himself out before he sees them again. He'll take a trip, get some literal distance. Nate is off on a boat or something, they won't do a job without him.

He leaves an envelope with notes for both of them in it in Hardison's apartment mailbox. The notes are almost embarrassingly short, just that he's leaving for a bit and he'll be back soon. They took him nearly an hour to write.

~

Alec sees Eliot and Parker sitting practically on top of each other on the couch, like he has a dozen times before, and the thought lights up his whole brain: they look good together. Really good. Objectively, he knew this. They're both ridiculously hot after all. But. They suit each other, not just aesthetically. Parker and Eliot have always communicated on a different plane of existence from Alec. Off the job, it's less obvious. But on the job? They're practically psychically linked. Alec is the odd one out, with babbling and complaints and not just _knowing_ like they can. Well, maybe sometimes he does get in sync, though he can feel how fragile it is when he does.

He can barely concentrate at all on the movie after that. He puts all of his energy into not obviously freaking out. These are the times Alec wishes he was inscrutable. They're going to pick up on his insecurity if he isn't careful. But, is insecurity what it really is? It feels like more. It feels kind of like longing.

It kind of blows his mind that he is even capable of wanting _more_ than this. He could ruin everything he already has so easily.

Parker leaves early but Eliot only stays like two minutes longer than she does. When he's alone, Alec fights the urge to just bury himself in a game or prep work or something equally distracting so he doesn't have to think about this. He ends up doing some low-grade hacking, the kind of thing that is only just difficult enough to do that writing a program to do it would be more trouble than doing it himself. Concentrating on something easy, something he can solve helps calm him down.

What it all comes down to is: Alec wants the three of them to all be dating. Like a couple but three people instead.

He could list off probably a hundred ways it could go wrong. The three of them are so different. Would Eliot and Parker even want to give it a try? Alec can't really imagine asking them. He has to figure out what he's going to do.

It's probably three in the morning when Alec finally decides to take a vacation. They'll know something is up if he gets all rattled in front of them again. It doesn't take long to pack.

He emails both of them, with a delay on the messages so they won't send until the morning. Alec isn't sure where he's going but he _is_ sure that he'll be back.

~

Emotions are hard. She knows they're harder for her than other people. She has to be taught cues they can just see somehow. But most people get their families when they're babies, and Sophie says they learn all along the way, not in big catch-up heap like Parker.

She cares now. It hurts more than she expected. Knowing more about emotions doesn't make them weaker; it makes them stronger. Sometimes she cares so much it's like she'll explode if anybody even looks at her.

That's what it's like after one of the movie nights. At first, it's the same as all the other ones, the three of them all talking at the same time and eating and laughing. It's good. It's _them_.

She can't pin down when the feeling starts building up, that it's all too good, that the goodness will pop like a bubble and leave her with nothing but soap suds. If she holds on too hard, it will slip sideways and disappear. Hardison and Eliot make weird faces that night, when they think nobody sees. It makes her think about her own face: what it's doing or not doing.

She couldn't stay after the movie is over. She usually does, usually they talk and talk. But it is all breakable somehow. It's scary. She needs to be alone.

So she leaves, and climbs in the dark, and stares at where the stars would be if the clouds weren't there. She thinks about how everything can change in a blink. Her eyes water after a while and she has to close them.

The next day, Parker wakes up and knows she needs to be alone in a different country. She leaves Hardison a note under his favourite tablet because he'll worry if she doesn't. Her note for Eliot goes in his fridge, where he'll see it right away.

~

Eliot is sitting at the bar in the nicest hotel in Reykjavik. It's easier to pretend he's home down here than in his room. It's stupid to be homesick when this is all his own choice, but it isn't the first time.

He's pulled out of his self-pity by an impossibly familiar voice. Eliot is too far away to catch the words but he'd know that cadence anywhere.

He is on his feet and heading out to the lobby before he really makes a decision to move. As the front desk comes into his line of sight, Eliot speeds up.

“Yes, thank you my good man,” Hardison says, in one of the worst upper-class British accents Eliot has ever heard. “Such _excellent_ service, why I remember a time in--”

“Excuse me, one second,” Eliot says to the desk clerk, as he bumps into Hardison and drags him a few feet away.

“What the hell do you think-- oh!” Hardison exclaims.

“What the hell do _you_ think you're doing?” Eliot hisses.

Hardison just stares at him.

“This is the _last place_ in the world you should be. _The world_ , Ha-- Alec!” Eliot almost called him Hardison. Was that the name he used back then? It doesn't matter, using Alec is less distinctive. Though he's never called Hardison by his first name and it's weird.

“Did you... follow me?” Hardison asks.

“What? You followed _me_! I checked in hours ago.” Eliot should have known this would happen. Of course Hardison would be able to track him down.

“Nuh uh,” Hardison says. “Seriously, I had no idea you'd be here.” He looks sincere.

Eliot pushed his hair back and sighs heavily. The whole thing is ridiculous. “You'd better come have a drink with me then,” he says.

~

Eliot points out a booth near the back of the hotel bar that he likes for his weird hitter reasons and Alec sits down. Eliot gets to choose the seats in public, it's part of the way things go. The routine of letting it happen is even somewhat calming. Every little bit helps.

Alec looks at the menu. It's in Icelandic and English which is great because he's just realized that his Icelandic dictionary is in the bag the guy already took to his room.

Eliot clears his throat and Alec looks up.

“Why here? You stick out like...” Eliot trails off.

“Like a black man in Iceland? Come on, sometimes being noticed is the best disguise, you know that.” Alec almost believes himself when he says it like that. 'I didn't know where to go' and 'I've always wondered if the Icelandic authorities have my face on file somewhere' would be more accurate but much less acceptable to Eliot.

Eliot just looks at him like he knows Alec is full of shit. It's a surprisingly comfortable expression. It's only been like a day and a half but Alec's _missed_ Eliot and his face. He misses Parker too.

Like thinking about her conjured her up, Alec notices a very familiar blond ponytail out of the corner of his eye. He turns to look and yep, there's Parker.

“Are y'all _telepathic_?” he mutters to himself because what even is this.

Eliot must have followed his gaze because he's out of the booth and striding over to Parker. She looks surprised to see him but comes over to the table as soon as Eliot points to it.

“Hi,” Alec says, grinning.

Parker sits down beside him. “Hey. You guys followed me?” She sounds curious, not mad.

Eliot sits down across from them. “I didn't,” he says flatly.

“Me neither,” Alec says.

“Doesn't matter,” Parker says. “We're all here now.”

“Parker, why are you in Iceland?” Eliot asks.

“I wanted to see a volcano,” she says, shrugging.

Eliot and Alec look at each other, then they both shrug too, at the same time.

“Okay, but like, why _here_?” Alec asks. “Lots of volcanoes in the world.”

“Not ice ones,” Parker says.

“Ice. Volcanoes,” Eliot says.

Parker grins. “I know, I know, it's summer, but there's still ice on glaciers in the summer so it's the same thing.”

“Parker. Baby. No. Just... no,” Alec says, shaking his head.

“Will there be bungee-jumping set up already, do you think? I brought gear just in case.”

Eliot laughs. It's a bit forced, like he's laughing more because he can't believe his life than at Parker. Alec can sympathize.

Parker jabs Alec with her elbow, too hard. “Well, why are you here then?”

“Because he really wants to get arrested,” Eliot says.

Parker's eyes widen. Alec says hastily, “No, no, I just wanted to... see the Northern Lights.”

Eliot rolls his eyes. “It's July. Iceland barely has _darkness_.”

All of them talk at once then and it's familiar ground, arguing but not really. Alec can't get over that they all came to the same country, to the same _hotel_. Maybe he's more in sync with Eliot and Parker than he thought.

~

There aren't any ice volcanoes in Iceland. Parker is disappointed but it was still worth the trip.


End file.
